


no fate awaits me

by Lunarieen



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Season 2 AU, the christmas fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22017742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarieen/pseuds/Lunarieen
Summary: Billy has 24 days to get to know his sister.(Or that Christmas fic where Billy tries to find the perfect gift for Max. Steve gets involved.)
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	no fate awaits me

**Author's Note:**

> [Playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2HPS3pjCzAefB8z3KcYP9h?si=su9Doj2USWG05qI-K5AITA)
> 
> This was supposed to be like, 5k.
> 
>  **Additional tags** : enemies to friends to lovers, sibling bonding, child abuse, panic attacks, suicide idealization, angst, swearing, non-graphic violence, canon violence, also comfort and fluff because steve is a saint, music references, billy deserves the best, self-indulgent

* * *

Billy Hargrove knows. He knows, but he also knows when to keep his mouth shut. Ignorance has always been safe.

(Once, he asked why and Niel answered with a backhanded slap across the mouth. Billy wore the shape of a ring like a crown for weeks.)

He tugs at one of his curls coated in his own blood, thinks that red doesn’t suit him and pours shampoo in his hand. His eyes stay open under the shower and it stings in a way that makes him feel alive. The cut on his forehead throbs. Another crown to wear starts Monday. At least, the cold will make everything go numb.

(It feels like poetic justice that he and Harrington will wear matching scars from plates smashed against their heads.)

Billy switches the water and it’s cold, but it’s also refreshing and the electricity bill will be cheaper this way. He hisses and his neck is covered in goosebumps but he rinses his arms and legs and torso with a ferocity that leaves his skin red. He wraps a towel around his hips, dries his feet and goes to his room.

(Quiet, quiet, quiet.)

He pulls on warm clothes and socks and gets himself into bed. The blanket reaches up to his nose. There is no chance for him to sleep on his stomach. The wound on his forehead stings too much to press it into the pillow. He is on his back, hands curled in loose fists, eyes closed.

He tries to sleep. He tries not to think about all the things that he knows.

❆❆❆

Max likes to think she's being discreet as she carefully stares outside the Camaro's window, but Billy knows better. When they exchange the customary words of the day, she's carefully staring past his shoulder or somewhere around his chest, where the necklace stays hidden underneath his sweater. It's hard to let it dangle against his skin and flaunt it because it's freezing outside and winter here is not gentle in the way it's been in California.

(Nothing is gentle in Hawkins, Indiana.)

There are 22 days until Christmas and Max likes to think she's being nice because the season requires it, but it’s not like her looking the other way will make the purple around his clavicle fade away. There is a laugh building up somewhere between his aching ribs, but the corner of his mouth is sore so he turns up the music and lets the angry guitar riffs fill up the silent space around them.

(He's not supposed to scream, so he bites the inside of his mouth whenever Neil's fingers bite at his flesh.)

And then Max rolls down the window, sticks her hand out at 90 mph and Billy slams the breaks so hard he feels the screech of the wheels in the pit of his stomach.

(Neil won't like the idea of a daughter with her arm blown to smithereens.)

He turns on Max and he's seething and his forehead pulses like an open wound. "What the fuck?"

Max turns back to him. Her lips are stretched over her teeth, making the freckles around her nose seem bigger. Billy is so used to seeing her snarl at him, fear hidden in the corner of her mouth, that it takes a second to recognize the smile for what it is. He blinks.

"It's snowing," Max squeals delighted. She wiggles her hand in the air, to emphasize it.

Billy squints. Tiny snowflakes land on the hood, on his windshield. They melt right away, but soon they will stick in a way that snow didn’t stick in California. They are parked on the side of the road and he's dreading the thought of cleaning his car every morning. He should buy some gloves before the world becomes white, white, white.

(Billy dreads the thought of Niel including snow and ice and freezing weather in his customary weekly lectures.)

“The forest must look amazing covered in snow. Like an ice sculpture," Max says as she's looking past the fields, at the trees. Billy rolls his eyes and it's about to bitch about how stupid it sounds, how cold it is, roll up the window Maxine, I don’t want to get sick because of you, when Max does just that and turns in her seat, stares straight ahead. "We're gonna be late," it's all she says.

Billy swallows the words and reves up the engine and drives her to school.

(Billy is used to Max being afraid of him. He doesn’t know what to do with Max redirecting that feeling at a goddamn forest.)

He drops her off at school and barely gets in time for his first period. They have English and Billy has read the book but his head hurts and he's pretty sure the teacher is talking about the other Bronte sister so he shuts up. He knows when to keep his mouth shut.

(Billy also knows that _afraid_ is a gentle word that belongs in California. Hawkins, Indiana doesn’t do _gentle_. Max was horrified.)

❆❆❆

"Do you like the forest or something?" Billy asks the next time he catches the same look on her face. It’s fleeting, like a firefly, but it’s there and Billy catches it because he is looking for it.

(“ _Did something happen in the forest_?” would be a more accurate question, but Billy isn’t supposed to ask that.)

Max jumps at that, but then she squares her shoulders and glares at Billy. "No." And then she adds, “Why do you care, anyway?”

It’s true, Billy doesn't, but he knows so it makes it harder for him to say so. He keeps on driving, pressing down on the gas pedal, AC/DC blasting through the speakers. The forest melts behind them and Max’s shoulders drop.

There are 20 days left until Christmas and Billy really needs to buy a pair of gloves. He’s thinking leather, but money is little that month so he’ll settle for something cheap, like plastic. It’s not cool and rock’n’roll, but the skin on his knuckles is already chapped and he likes to avoid pain when he can.

❆❆❆

Billy looks up at the sky and wonders what people would name its color if blue wouldn't exist. It didn't, a hundred or so years ago. He wonders what the world would look like if there was no shadow shaped after him.

(Billy likes the color blue. His Camaro is blue. He also thinks the world would be the same without him.)

He smokes a cigarette until the last of it burns the skin on his index finger and then spends too much time in the store, trying to decide which pair of gloves to buy. He is late to pick up Max and it’s dark by the time he pulls up in front of the house. The dinner is quiet and Susan is talking about splurging a little on Christmas lights this year. She gushes about hanging them outside - a warm yellow colour, if possible, and around the windows - red because it’s elegant. Max asks if they can get glass ornaments. She’s seen some pretty ones down at Walmart. Susan smiles and Neil nods. Billy doesn’t say anything. His eyes are on Neil’s grip around his fork.

(Tight, tight, tight.)

Later, he is in the bathroom and his skin looks almost translucent in the light of the candle. They don’t close the door during the night because it creaks and it wakes up Susan, so Billy has to be careful to not turn on the light. Their room is across the hall. He dabs at the wound on his forehead - it opened up again when Neil showed him just how wrong it was to get Max late at home.

(Home sounds angry in Hawkins, Indiana. It only ever sounded gentle on the California beaches.)

Max is standing in the doorway when Billy turns around looking for the bandages he brought from his room. His senses feel disconnected and Max looks almost transparent, like a hallucination, and it makes an inhuman sound get stuck in his throat. He almost drops the candle on his foot.

“What are you doing?” He has to whisper, but he also wants to shout so it comes out as a cough.

Max’s eyes meet his. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says.

(Means, she heard everything.)

“I have to pee,” she adds. She’s staring past his shoulder, forever careful, as if she is waiting for the shadows to morph into something physical. The towel is in the skin, the bloody part facing up.

Billy thinks he wants to yell at her that she can wait a few more fucking minutes, but he can’t so he takes his candle with him and goes back to his room. There are 19 days until Christmas. Billy wonders whether he’ll get a present, but he crushes that thought as soon as it pops up in his mind. He never got a present after his mother left, and he learned the hard way not to ask for one. Max will probably get whatever they can afford and if they can’t, Billy will get the blame.

There are bruises on his shoulder blades, around his spine, but it’s better than sheets stained with blood from an open wound. He lays on his back, grits his teeth when pain jolts in his bones and closes his eyes.

A second later, a door closes down the hall. The wind rattles the glass. It’s cold, cold, cold.

Billy opens his eyes. He wishes for the warmth of California, for the waves and the sand around his fingers. They didn’t have a Christmas tree, back home, but maybe Neil will go into the woods this year and chop one of Max’s darling tree for her. He will bring it home and put it in the window so people can see when it’s lit up. They will hang all the glass ornaments on its branches. Carols might play on the radio.

Billy stares at his ceiling and decides to buy Max a Christmas present, gloves be damned. Neil will expect him to, anyway.

(But also because there are things Max knows that she wasn’t supposed to know. He wishes she didn't.)

❆❆❆

Billy thinks so hard about the present that he forgets to turn up his music, to speed down the road. He almost misses the way Max curls in her shoulders when they go past the forest. There is a wistful look in her eyes as she glances at the trees coated in white, but she doesn't comment on it.

(A lifetime ago, Max has been thrilled about the idea of moving somewhere with trees big enough and weather cold enough to freeze a snow angel into the ground.)

There are 18 days until Christmas and it finds Billy thinking of his mother. Her image is in the corner of his eye, forever frozen at the age of thirty-something, her golden locks and sunshine smile intact. She is dressed in her white dress, a sun hat clutched in her hand. In his dreams, she never wears anything else. Her feet dance in the sand and her hair is a halo around her head. The air smells like salt and candy floss. She’s smiling at him.

He thinks of home.

(Hawkins, Indiana offered him a house. He unlearned the word _home_ the moment he crossed California’s border.)

Max screams, nails digging in his arms.

Billy’s attention snaps back to the road in time to swerve the car from some kid riding a bicycle. The air is colorless and the sky overcast. There are no shadows on the ground, and yet Billy all could see for a second was an ocean of blue. The kid falls off his bike anyway, landing in the dirt on the side.

“Stopstopstop!” Max is hitting his arm and spitting the words and the world is a blur around him. There is a bruise hidden underneath his leather jacket, but she’s not looking at him to notice the way his mouth tightness. She’s looking outside the window, at the fallen boy. “You almost killed Dustin. Stop, you asshole!”

He doesn’t know who Dustin is, but he stops and puts the car in reverse. Max jumps out the moment they get closer to him, leaving the door hanging open. The frosted air rushes in and is biting at his face, making his eyes sting. Billy fiddles with the radio. The Who start playing about blue eyes. Billy turns off the radio.

Max shows up again, the boy he almost hit in tow.

Billy sees his curly hair and thinks Harrington.

“You fucked up his bike,” Max says. She’s glaring and there is no fear curled around her eyes. The kid peeks up from behind a big scarf and behind Max, but he doesn’t say anything.

“So?” Billy asks and taps his hands on the steering wheel. He doesn’t look at the watch on his wrist. He knows they will be late for the first period.

(He doesn’t say he was thinking about that time when his mother bought him a skateboard for their last Christmas together.)

“So,” Max says and it sounds so much like him, “we need to give him a ride.” She squares his shoulders and looks over her shoulder at the kid - Dustin - until he nods, his curls bouncing around his cheeks. She’s fierce with her ginger hair framing her face. She acts as if she’s holding the nail bat in the hand that doesn’t keep the door open.

(But she’s not. Dustin knows this and he also knows that Billy knows. The kid’s eyes are very honest.)

Billy is suddenly very tired and he doesn’t want to find a reason not to buy Max a present. He’s also not looking for a reason to get more bruises tattooed on his skin. “You have five minutes. Put the bike in the back and get in."

They’re done in three minutes and a half.

Billy hopes they talk about something so he could figure out what to get Max for Christmas. There are 18 days left and he has no clue whatsoever. They don’t talk in the 17 minutes that it takes Billy to drive them to school.

(He doesn’t think about Harrington who is supposed to drop the kid at school every morning.)

Dustin opens his mouth and says something about music and Queen. Max shuts him up, glancing at Billy from the corner of her eyes. Billy hears them and plays Mötley Crüe so loud that Max doesn’t even say anything to him once they get out of the car. She flips him off. Dustin peers at him over his scarf. Billy speeds out of the parking lot without looking back.

Max isn’t late for the first period.

(But it is late enough for Neil to leave fingerprints around Billy’s neck after Susan and Max go to sleep.)

❆❆❆

Steve Harrington finds him at school the next day. The expression on his face is defensive and withdrawn, his shoulders tense. Billy’s eyes are on the blue of his Camaro, the surroundings a cacophony around him. He takes out a cigarette and lights it up.

“Hargrove,” Harrington says and puts his hand on his shoulder when his presence isn't enough to get him noticed, turns him around.

(Neil likes to dig his nails into Billy’s shoulders every time he pushes him against a wall.)

Billy bristles. He slaps the hand away and pushes Harrington for good measure. His lungs fill with air again only after there are a few feet between them.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Harrington is watching him. His lips are pressed thin, but his eyes are intense. Burning.

“The bike,” he says. “Give it back.”

Billy tilts his head, thinking about it. “What are you talking about?” A curl brushes against his cheek.

(The bike is sitting in the backyard, behind the shed. Neil doesn’t look there, and Billy can fix it without being interrupted.)

Steve holds his poker face in place, but fury drips into his words. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Billy’s smile is sharp. “Don’t have enough money to buy another one for the kid?”

“Where is it, Hargrove?”

He shrugs. “The junkyard. It messed up the interior of my car.”

(He hopes to get some intel on the gift situation from the Dustin kid if he returns the bike in tip-top shape.)

“I should make him pay for it. Dry-cleaning is expensive.” Billy laughs and the sound bounces off the hoods around them. He drops the cigarette on the ground, steps on it with the heel of his boot. “See you never, fucker.”

(He wants to say pretty boy, but the words get stuck below his diaphragm.)

❆❆❆

Billy returns the bike in the middle of the night. It takes two hours to find the right house, and when he does, he leaves it in front of the porch as if it sprouted up from the ground. He is not too worried about someone stealing it. It’s a shitty bike, anyway.

It starts snowing when he’s halfway home. The alley in front of the house is fully covered in a thin layer of ice by the time he gets there and he slips. He lands on his back, on his bruises. Pain pulls at his muscle and he has to close his eyes and press his fist against his lips to keep himself from screaming. He hopes, he wishes, he prays that he didn’t make a sound.

The sky is dull and ink black and boring. It looks like it’s melting around rooftops. He makes a snow angel while he waits. He ruins it before climbing up his window. It was left open to make it easier for him to get back. It’s freezing inside his room and not even the three blankets he has don’t make the shivers in his bones go away.

(Neil heard him when he fell outside the house. He gives Billy the wake-up call with a heavy boot planted in his stomach. Purple blooms around his ribs. When Neil is done with his weekly lecture, he covers Billy with the three blankets and takes Max to school.)

❆❆❆

Once upon a time in Santa Monica, Billy liked to press his nose against cold windows and watch other people’s Christmas trees. His house never had one. They had different ways of celebrating, his mother used to say. But he liked the lights and glass ornaments and the blue of his eyes was still clear enough for him to get out of the house after the night settled in.

With the little pocket money he got from Mrs. Prim down the road, he would buy wooden reindeers and stars and hang them around the room. He lit up candles and placed them on the windowsill in case other children liked to look inside his home. Frank Sinatra sang in the living room because his mother loved his voice.

Once, Neil got home earlier than he was supposed to. He burned the ornaments and put out the candles and broke every Frank Sinatra record his wife owned. There were better things to spend money on, he would say as he finished with the records and passed onto the mirrors.

(Once upon a time in Hawkins, Indiana, Neil came home with a small Christmas tree for Max. She had glass ornaments hung up and Dean Martin played in the living room because Susan loved his voice.)

❆❆❆

There are 16 days until Christmas. It’s Saturday and the house is empty. Neil took Susan and Max to the shopping mall a town over. It means Neil got a promotion and he wants to treat his family right, to make sure Susan will stick by another year. They will get back with heavy paper bags and the fridge will be full again.

Billy is in his room. He is in his bed, covered with the three blankets. Pain is like a ghost around his shoulder blades and like a knife around his ribs. He probably smells. He couldn’t get out of the room since the day before and the door remained closed.

The wind howls outside, but the day is bright, bright, bright. The sun is showing its teeth and is invading the whole room. Billy lifts himself up on an elbow. His muscles scream. There is snow on the ground, on the trees, on the rooftops around them.

There is snow on the front alley and on his Camaro.

(Later, he will clean one and will be forced to clean the other.)

The house is empty, the wood floors creaking around him. It smells like cinnamon and tea. The house is empty and Billy finds himself in Max’s room. It’s tidy, but good god, she owns a lot of shit. It gives him a headache.

The clothes feel sticky with sweat and dried blood on him, but his feet are warm. His curls are tied in a bun and his earing is cold against his cheek.

(His mother used to let him braid her hair. He was bad at it, but she wore it like a fucking crown.)

Max owns too many things - they come in different sizes and colours and weird smells - and Billy suddenly thinks she doesn’t need anything for Christmas. He opens and closes drawers, bangs doors and shifts stuff around just to erase the void that starts growing inside his head. Max doesn’t need anything and definitely, she doesn’t need anything from him.

(He knows, and he isn’t supposed to know. He is useless. )

Billy wants to mess up Max’s room and pour gasoline over the green bedspread. He kicks at a pair of shoes. They go flying under the desk. A pencil falls off to the side.

“Uhm-”

Billy turns.

Steve Harrington is in the doorway, looking like he just woke up in the house and doesn’t know what to do with the situation. Not the bomber jacket nor the wool mittens are helping the confused stare he’s sporting.

“What are you doing? This is Max’s room, right?”

Billy considers jumping out the window that’s behind him. He is ashamed and he knows there is dried blood under his left ear. He wants to curl up under the desk in the corner. And then all he feels is anger. It burns white-hot in his veins and blurs his vision.

He blinks and he is standing in front of Harrington, hands fisted in his stupid bomber jacket.

(There is a matching scar on both their foreheads. One is healed, one is still bleeding.)

“Fuck you!” He pushes at Harrington’s chest until his back hits the wall. “How the fuck did you get in? What the fuck are you doing here, you piece of shit?”

Billy is shaking. He feels it in his knees.

Harrington has his hands up. His gaze is steady.

(He is not afraid.)

“Chill out, man. I knocked but no one answered. And the door was opened and I want to talk to you.”

A grave sound travels up from behind Billy’s heart. It maybe sounds like howling, or like a hiccup.

“I will fuck you up, pretty boy. Not one bitch will look at your face when I’m done.”

(Pretty, pretty, pretty. His mind blanks out.)

Harrington hesitates, but then he puts his hands on Billy’s shoulder. The air stills around him. Billy’s eyes focus on Steve’s nose.

“I just wanted to thank you. About Dustin’s bike? You fixed it. I would have told you that in school, yesterday. But they said you were sick. Uhm, are you sick? Hargrove? Billy?”

Billy slams Harrington against the wall, all the air going out of him. Pain flares up around his spine.

“Get. Out.” Billy takes a step back. His fingers unclench from around the jacket. “I will kill you,” he whispers.

Harrington keeps his back at the wall. He doesn’t blink.

(He still doesn’t look afraid.)

“Thank you, Billy,” he says and leaves.

Billy screams and punches the wall in his room until his knuckles bleed.

❆❆❆

Later, Max figures out Billy has been in her room. She comes to him, shoulders squared and mean things on the tip of her tongue. She barges into his room and stops there.

“Billy?”

Billy cracks open an eye. He took a warm shower after shoveling the snow outside and he sat in the chair next to the radiator, a book in his hands. He fell asleep three pages in.

(His bruises don’t hurt if he sleeps in a chair.)

The book slides from his lap, _thud_ , on the ground. The cover of the "Catcher in the rye" is crumpled and the pages yellow. He read the book way too many times, but it’s Billy’s favourite book and the only thing that can ground him when the world crumbles around him.

Max takes a step closer. The chilly air creeps around his left shoulder. The shirt had slipped off. Max is staring at the purple part of his skin.

(Winter, with its unforgiving air, makes it easier for Billy to hide from Max. She knows too many things, anyway.)

“What do you want, Maxine?” He wants his words to cut at the flesh around her thin ankles, to make her bleed, but he feels drunk with sleep and nightmares. The words are barely a whisper.

“Are you hungry?”

There are 16 days left and Billy still doesn’t have a present for Max.

(He knows things he isn’t supposed to know.)

Billy falls asleep before he can say no. He wakes up hours later, a nightmare thrumming in his veins. There is a plate on his desk, a piece of pie on it. A glass of water is glistening in the dark. Billy sees shadows dancing in it. He eats. He drinks. The clock shows two in the morning. He gets up and gets dressed and exits the house.

❆❆❆

There are 16 days - no, 15 days left until Christmas, because it’s past three o’clock in the morning and Billy is wondering about the town dressed in his thin jean jacket and a shirt. The air bites at his ears and the skin on his hands is dry, but the cold makes the pain go numb so he keeps on walking.

He feels untethered like the ground is slipping from underneath his feet. He feels like shaking, but his hands are steady as he keeps them in his pockets. Emotions are a bubbling volcano under his skin. It’s a song humming in his ears. Vibration at the tips of his fingers.

There are Christmas trees nicely done behind the windows. Plastic ornaments in different colors. Empty teacups on coffee tables. It must smell like herbs and chocolate and oranges. Billy feels like he is going to vibrate out of his skin. He feels wired, splinting at the edges. He wants to push his fist through the glass, see if it’s going to hurt less.

(The _bad days_ were the State Park days. His mother would take him to the highest point a nine, ten, eleven years old child could climb and they would scream their lungs out. Her smile was always brighter after, his heart always lighter.)

Billy wants to break something but everything is covered in snow and his foot hits the air when he thinks he spots the shape of a stone. He keeps to the sidewalk, the houses at a safe distance.

(He wonders if Steve Harrington has a tree set up. He wants to ruin it but also wants to see the tiny lights play in Harrington’s hair.)

Billy doesn’t press his nose to the windows. The glass is frozen and the skin might stick to it. There are enough scars on his body, anyway.

(Always on the body, never on the face. The blow to the forehead was a mistake.)

The houses get bigger, the trees taller. The roofs get higher and the front lawns wider. It should smell like winter, but it also smells like money. Billy spits on the ground and wants to set fire to Hawkins, Indiana.

A car pulls next to him, its engine alive in a way Billy doesn’t feel like. The sound startles him, but he digs his heels in the snow and keeps on walking. It doesn’t sound like Neil’s truck, anyway.

(Santa Monica smelled like salt and candy during winter. Home smelled like the gingerbread his mother used to bake for him.)

“Billy.”

The car is going slowly, matching his speed. Steve Harrington has the window rolled down and he peers up at him. The name feels strange in his mouth. It sounds quiet, without the aggressiveness and disgust Neil likes to attach to the last vowel.

(His mother loved saying his name. Billy, Billy, Billy. _My sunflower._ )

He doesn't stop. The car follows him, Harrington’s eyes on his arm.

“Get inside. It’s freezing outside.”

Billy kicks a rock on the ground and wishes he was hitting Neil’s face instead.

“Get inside or I’m calling the police to tell them you’re loitering around people’s houses, looking inside.”

Billy stops. He considers his options.

(He is so tired. He wants to lie on the ground and sleep an eternity and a half.)

Steve Harrington opens the door for him, waiting. Billy slams the door closed with his foot, spits, “Fuck you and your whole prissy family, Harrington,” and turns around. The road leads back to the house, but there is also the forest and that seems like a better place to be than anywhere else in Hawkins. If he had the car, he’d drive himself into a ditch on purpose.

(Sometimes, he thinks about ending it. They all die, anyway.)

“Why do you have to be such a jerk, Hargrove?”

Harrington appears in front of him, between a blink and another and Billy stops this time. He takes a step back, holds his breath and counts to three. There is heat radiating off of Harrington’s body. It comes in waves and it makes him dizzy. He forgot how warm human beings can be when they’re not slamming his head against walls.

Billy sneers at him, all teeth and split lips because that’s what he knows how to do best. It shuts up his traitorous heart. “Awww, poor little Stevie Harrington cares about little old me?”

Steve frowns. There’s that look in his eyes again. In doesn’t look like judgment. It looks like he’s trying to figure out the pieces of a puzzle. “I’m worried about this thing - this weird thing you’re doing. Are you going to break into people’s houses?”

Billy straightens his shoulders; takes a step forward. His blood is singing with the promise of a fight. “Do you think I’d tell you if I did? Hm? Are you that naive, pretty boy?”

Harrington looks around him, eyes narrowing in the distances, listening. Then he gazes at his car for a split of a second. The door on the driver’s side is open. Billy steps in front of his sight and laughs. “Just you an’ me, pretty boy.” He presses his hands to his chest -

(Warm, warm, warm.)

-and he pushes. Hard. Harrington stumbles back, almost slips on the snow.

“Why do you keep following me, huh? Do you want another plate smashed against your head?”

There are only rocks around them.

Steve looks over his shoulder for a beat. Then, his eyes are back on Billy. “Max said you’ve been acting weird.”

“Fuck Max. What does she think she knows?”

(She knows. Billy knows. It's just the nature of the things they know that is different.)

“Look, man. I’m only trying to do the right-”

Billy gets up in his face. His hands are balled up in tight fist by his sides, shaking, shaking, shaking. The scar on Harrington’s forehead is pink and angry in the winter air.

“No, no. You’re wrong. And you know why?” Billy asks, his breath billowing like smoke between them. He taps his fingers against Harrington’s face, delighted by the way his body freezes. “You,” Billy says and his voice drops an octave, “should have kept Max out of it.”

(He knows. He knows. He knows.)

“What are you talking about?”

Billy briefly wonders if Harrington is really that dumb or he just gets off on playing it. He curls his fingers in his jackets, pulls him closer until they are nose to nose. His fingers itch with the power of the punch he could throw.

He whispers, “Monsters are real, Stevie. Did you know that?”

Harrington’s eyes get big, big, big. His skin gets paler, his breath stuttering out of him.

“They will _never_ find you, Harrington, if you get my sister killed.”

The world is teetering on an axis and Billy feels drunk with it. He kicks Harrington’s legs out of him. The muted _thud_ of the fall fills him with satisfaction. “I hope those damned flower monsters eat you up in your bed,” Billy says as he retreats. “Leave my fucking sister out of it!" He doesn’t look at the boy still on the ground as he almost starts running back to the house.

(He doesn’t acknowledge Steve’s stuttered breathing, the wetness of his eyes, the words that made his mouth open but would never come out.)

❆❆❆

Billy doesn’t drive Max to the arcade - she said something about someone’s mother giving them a lift there - but he is in the parking lot, watching a bunch of kids scream at each other in front of a game. They are small and gross and loud in a way Billy was never allowed to.

They are 13, going on 14, and they have a childhood Billy never had.

They are 13, going on 14, and they fought monsters Billy is not familiar with.

(Billy wishes his monster had rows of teeth and faces that opened up like flowers. Maybe it would be easier to recognize it around him.)

They are 13, going on 14, and they have something Billy lost when his mother erased his existence with a single sentence.

(" _I can’t do this anymore.")_

He leaves the arcade without a single clue about the gift. It’s not like he can buy a game that big for Max anyway. She doesn’t need it anyway.

❆❆❆

It’s the eve of day 14 before Christmas and Steve Harrington finds Billy in a different part of the town. It’s cold and the winter feels ancient. It feels like it came to stay for a very long time and spring is so far away, a thing of a different realm. The houses look like tombstones, the snow hiding corpses in their backyards.

Harrington slows down the car. It’s purring on the road, a living thing among the dead.“Get inside.” After a second, he adds. “Get inside and I’ll tell you about the monsters.”

Billy huffs out a laugh. He is not strung up like the other night. The blood is a still river inside his veins. There is no energy to keep him warm. He is cold and he can’t feel his face. “No, you won’t.”

He watches Harrington think over the answer as if he hasn’t known it all along. “No, I won’t. But it is cold as fuck out and I don’t want Hop to find a dead body in the morning.”

“Hop?”

“Hopper. The chief of police.”

“Of course. Is he involved in this fuckery, too?”

Harrington closes his mouth so fast it makes Billy choke on a laugh. “Man, how many do know about this shit?”

“About the flower monsters?”

And it takes Billy a second too long to recognize the inflection in Harrington’s words. He is being mocked.

“Go fuck yourself,” he says and he flips him the bird. But his chest feels suddenly warm and yellow and he stopped walking eight and a half minutes ago and he’s just talking to Harrington through the open window of the Beamer. “Did it happen in the forest?”

Harrington regards him with a small crease between his eyebrows.

(Billy wants to press the pad of his finger there.)

“Why?”

“Max is afraid of the forest?”

“They all are. It’s-”

“She used to dream about living next to a forest. And then we move to this godforsaken town who breeds monsters and she’s afraid to go in.”

The stars are bright, but they are above and the darkness is coiling around Billy’s ankles. It’s making him want to look over his shoulder. Harrington must sense his unease because he leans over the console and opens the door.

“Get in. They like the cold.”

Billy doesn’t need to get told twice. When he’s inside and the heat turned up to the maximum, he presses his fingers to the radiator and sighs in relief. “This is what you’re doing every night, Harrington? Checking to see if there are any monsters left?”

“That and, uh - well, I can’t sleep. So I drive.”

Billy is not looking at him but he hears him shift around in his seat.

“What are you doing, Billy? Still looking inside people’s homes?”

(Billy likes how his name sounds on his lips.)

He is woozy with heat and comfort because he tells the truth, for once. “No. I’m looking for a fucking gift. For Max. I need inspiration.”

Steve Harrington laughs. Billy turns, his eyes hard, his fists ready to defend.

“Easy, cowboy. But like - why?”

“I know that you’re not _that_ dumb, Harrington.”

“Ok. Christmas is coming. But why?”

“Because I want to. That good fucking enough for you?”

(Because she is 13 going on 14 and she knows too much.)

“Did you find anything?”

Billy shakes his head.

“Does she need anything?”

Billy shrugs. “A different family, maybe. Not a brother, definitely.”

Steve frowns. Billy can sense it in the way he talks. “Did you try Joyce’s shop?”

“Who?”

“Will’s mom.”

The boy who disappeared the year before. Max talked about him.

“Who?”

“Oh, my god. The Byers.”

Billy turns in time to see Harrington pouting. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Tomorrow, let’s go there. I’ll help you find something for Max.”

“Why the fuck would I need your help?”

“Because,” he says and his eyes are taking the shape of a laugh, “you definitely look like you don’t know how to pick a present.”

“And you do, pretty boy?”

“Of course. I have-”

“Of course. You have money. Too bad they can’t buy you a good taste. Fuck you.”

Steve laughs. It’s ripped out of him and he looks surprised by it, but he doesn’t stop. He laughs as he starts driving again when Billy stopped coming apart next to him. He laughs and turns on the radio and they listen to country music. He laughs all the way until Old Cherry Road, where he stops two houses from Billy’s own.

“Tomorrow. After school. I’ll see you in the parking lot. Don’t be late.”

(Billy wants to bottle up that sound and keep it under his pillow.)

❆❆❆

It’s Friday and Max is sleeping at someone called Jane so Billy meets up with Harrington to go shopping after school. It goes spectacularly wrong the minute he suggests something pink as a gift. Harrington might be joking, but Billy can taste acid in the back of his tongue because everything nice is too expensive. He is not a good brother, but he is not that horrible either.

There are 12 days left until Christmas and Billy hates every suggestion Steve comes up with. They fight after the third store when they get something to eat from the nearby diner. Harrington suggests that _money is not a problem, honestly,_ and Billy pours his hot chocolate on Steve’s jacket and storms out of there. He can do this by himself as well. Steve can go fuck himself.

❆❆❆

Max has four hours to spend at the arcade and Billy has to make sure she is back on time for dinner. Susan is making her famous lasagna, the one that he hates so much, and Neil is adamant about having all of them gathered around the table. They need to talk about winter break plans or some other bullshit that will paint them in a brighter colour for the outsiders, but Billy knows he will be the only one wearing purple hues. The afternoon smells of spring, but the sunlight is sharp and unforgiving, with storm clouds on the horizon.

(He learned to keep his mouth shut about Susan’s cooking when Neil forced down his throat an entire chocolate cake. His mother always made him fruit cakes with a lot of cream cheese inside because he didn’t like anything too sweet.)

Billy closes his eyes and dreams of the ocean and the sand. If he tries hard enough, he can feel its texture between his fingers. The sound of the waves overlaps with the guitar riffs in the background. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel to the Scorpions and he bobs his head against the headrest. A pair of dark sunglasses sit on his nose because he is allergic to every sunlight that’s not from Santa Monica.

(One more year and he’ll leave this town. One more year until he can go back. )

The day becomes less good when Harrington knocks against his window. He is wearing a dumb scarf and his dumb hair is sticking out of his hat. Turns up the volume of the music, flips him off and keeps the sunglasses on.

Harrington keeps on knocking until he stops.

Billy jumps at the loud thud coming from above. He opens the door, yells, “Did you just fucking hit my car?”

Harrington lifts one shoulder. “You were ignoring me.”

Billy is only in his sweater, too thin for the weather. He shivers before he can reply. “Yes, it was on purpose.”

“I have an idea. For the gift.” He looks over his shoulder, in the direction of the arcade. “For Max.”

Scorpion still drones in the background. His pack of cigarettes is in the car. Billy’s eyebrows go up and up and up and he doesn’t say anything.

“I know,” Harrington adds after a second, “it’s not gonna cost you like, any money. Maybe less than a dollar. I don’t know for sure. Not even that if I have the stuff lying around at home. Ok, shut up man, listen to me. You won’t regret it. We can finish by the time the kids are done here and then you can-”

Billy doesn’t have his cigarettes on him so he pulls at Harrington’s scarf and stuffs it in his mouth. “You really say everything you think, don’t you? Some people have something that’s called a filter.”

Harrington spits the scarf out of his mouth and tries to kick at Billy’s shin. “You’re driving, Hargrove.”

It takes approximately 17 minutes to drive to the Harrington mansion, time in which Billy goes over the speed limit and plays the music so loud that it stops any attempt at a civil conversation. The guitar riffs eat up their screams. Steve sulks in his corner like a child. Billy laughs and he parks half on the sidewalk, half on the street, almost knocking over the mailbox.

He doesn’t take off his boots when Harrington opens the door for him and enjoys tremendously the snowy show prints he leaves on the hardwood, very expensive, floors.

“Can I smoke in here?” Billy asks, looking around the living room. There is a back yard behind those glass doors and a pool and chairs around it, but Billy really wants to trash the interior. There is no Christmas tree inside, but Harrington turns on every light so it’s not much of a difference anyway.

“Whatever you want,” comes the reply from a room over.

Billy lights up a cigarette. He blows the smoke to the ceiling and grins when he spots the chandelier. Of course.

Harrington comes back with a tape recorder and a bunch of cassettes. He places them on the coffee table and stares at Billy. When he can’t get a reaction out of him, mainly because Billy likes to see him uncomfortable, he puts his hands on his hips and sighs.

“We’re going to make a mixtape.”

Billy blinks. Smoke gets stuck in his windpipe.

(His mother loved mixtapes. Billy’s birthdays had a soundtrack for as long as he remembers. After she left, Billy’s world turned soundless.)

Harrington starts pulling out record sleeves, displaying them on the ground. A bunch of cassettes shows up next to them. There is a turntable next to the TV set and a boombox on a shelf nearby. Billy likes to think that Harrington is oblivious, but he never looked once his way after he mentioned the mixtape idea, so he thinks that something must have shown on his face.

(His mother loved The Smiths and Cindy Lauper and Tania Turner. Joy Division and The Beatles. They owned vinyl for every artist they loved. Billy destroyed them all before they left Santa Monica.)

There is a plate on the coffee table and Billy puts out his cigarette between crumbs of bread. “I gotta mention, man,” he says and waits until Harrington looks up at him, “I don’t know what music Max listens to.”

Eleven days until Christmas and all he got is Harrington’s dumb, incredulous eyes staring up at him.

(Steve’s hair is all over the place, like a giant blanket. Billy would like to card his fingers through it, see if he can tame the unruliness of it.)

Billy thinks about the forest. About the terror in Max’s eyes. “This is useless, really.”

Harrington deflates. His shoulders drop, his arms go limp and his hair moves with his whole being. “But, you always listen to music.”

“She hates my music.”

(Once, she tried to play some Nina Simone. Billy got choked up on memories so hard that the only thing he could do was scream at her. She never tried to change the music ever again.)

“She must like,” Harrington does a weird thing with his hands,” something. Anything. I bet we can figure it out if we like, pick some artists. Randomly.”

Billy really doesn’t want to be doing this, but his heart is doing something funny inside his chest and it's fogging up his mind. “We have less than three hours to make it happen, idiot.”

Harrington claps his hands because he sometimes forgets to act like an almost adult. “That’s enough. Ok, let’s start with this.”

Billy indulges him and sits down on the couch. He crosses his arms over his chest and listens to whatever song is playing, closing his eyes when a familiar tune starts up. Snow melts off his boots, sipping into the expensive carpet. One second, he is in Harrington’s living room, winter air crawling all over dead rose bushes, and the other he is in his mother’s kitchen, the ocean ten minutes away. She loved to dance with him, even if he was two heads shorter than her. She clasped his hands in hers and they spun barefoot on the tiles, laughing because life was always better when there was music.

(She talked about Billy meeting a nice girl and taking her out to dance. Billy met a nice boy instead.)

He opens his eyes when Harrington grabs him by the writs. He pulls him off the couch. Knees knock against the side table and chairs. The air fills with laughter. There are still fingers wrapped around his arms, spinning him in circles under the ugly chandelier, but they don't want to hurt him. There is a song he doesn’t recognize playing at the boombox and god, it’s so loud that Billy can’t think of anything else.

Harrington is a bad dancer. He mouths the lyrics, changes the name in the song and hollers, “ _Come on, Billy. Oh, come on, Billy_.”

The air is warm and yellow and hazy.

“ _Come on, Billy, oh I swear, At this moment, you mean everything_.”

Billy closes his eyes. He breathes. He laughs.

(He’s back at the house on time, sitting around the dinner table, eating Susan’s horrible food. The knife screeches against the plate every time he cuts a piece of undercooked lasagna. He is looking at Neil when he talks to him. He is thinking about Steve’s hands on his waist.)

_Come on, Billy._

_Come on._

(Yes, yes, yes.)

❆❆❆

It’s midnight and Billy doesn’t think he will ever give Max a mixtape. She probably likes indie crap anyway. The hood dents where he is sitting, looking at the trees. The darkness is thick around their trunks, like honey.

He waits.

He doesn’t breathe.

(He misses Steve’s warmth surrounding him.)

The trees smell like decay.

When nothing comes for his throat, he goes back. He is in his bed before the sun splinters the sky in hues of orange and purple.

Neil never finds out.

❆❆❆

Ten days until Christmas and Billy has a flashlight in one hand and a bat in the other as he loiters around the forest. An hour before, he drove into there from the other end, the one that goes to Marion and then Fort Wayne.

(The opposite direction from the lab.)

The road was mostly potholes and mud once he was out of Hawkins, the car sighing and creaking every time it hit one, but Billy pressed the gas pedal and kept on driving. A town map was opened on the seat next to him. He knew he had to turn left in a few minutes, to get into the forest.

(He knew if he drove past those few minutes, Hawkins would turn into a memory.)

He turned left. The road was only mud. He drove until the soil got liquid and the threat of getting his Camaro stuck was imminent.

It’s so quiet, Billy can hear his heart beating in his ears. The air smells different, less like smoke, more like blood. If he concentrates really hard, he can taste salt on the tip of his tongue. The skin on his hands is chapped from the cold, beads of blood frozen on his knuckles. Twigs snap under his boots. The flashlight isn’t helping and the bat feels feeble in his hand.

He keeps on walking.

(He thinks about the State Park and Santa Monica and feel like screaming.)

There was no wind to cut through the trees, no animals to make sounds. It was him, the forest, his imagination. The moon keeps winking at the ground, showing him the path and then eating it out before he could see it clearly.

(If he thinks about the dance, he realises Steve smells a bit like mint.)

It’s so quiet.

He doesn’t find anything.

❆❆❆

Nine days.

(Billy feels the fear simmering low in his veins.)

Nine days and no present. Steve finds him by the locker. His grip on his hand is tight, tight, tight. His eyes are not laughing. His lips are pale.

“Were you in the forest last night?”

Billy stares at the fingers curled around his bicep. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not pleasant either. It's an itch he wants to scratch.

“What’s it to you?” he tries to take a step back, but he can’t.

“Don’t tell me about the monsters and then go walking alone at night, Hargrove.”

The school thrums with life around them. It smells like sweat and too much bubblegum. The floors are covered in mud. There is Tommy H. in the background, Carol next to him. There is Jefferson and Kite and Susan. The Wheeler girl and Byers. The school walls vibrate with the upcoming holidays.

(Billy hates Christmas.)

He shows his teeth. “Will you cry at my funeral if they eat me alive?”

“Billy.” It’s small and soft in his mouth, a sad little thing. The hand is no longer gripping him; it’s holding him.

(Soft as a caress.)

Steve looks over his shoulder. “Are you going tonight, again?”

“Want to come to hold the torch for me, Harrington?”

“Tell me the hour.”

Billy takes a step back before he does something stupid like spitting in Steve’s face.

(Or worse, touching him back.)

“I’ll come to pick you up. Mommy and daddy home?”

For a second, Steve looks small in front of him, shoulders curling inwards. Another one goes by and he’s back to being the taller out of two of them. “I’m alone. Just honk when you’re outside.”

Billy doesn’t ponder on the word, on the feeling inside his chest. He slams his locker closed and doesn’t look back.

❆❆❆

“Are we looking for anything specifically?”

They’ve been walking for an hour. Billy has his baseball bat. Steve has the one with nails. They don’t talk about it, they just point the flashlights in front of them.

“We’re looking for a place to scream.”

It’s a clear night around them. The light is good enough for them to see several feet in front of them. The words turn into smoke and tears freeze at the corner of their eyes. Steve is shaking next to him.

(Billy wants to hold him.)

“Here,” Steve says and hands him one of his gloves.

Billy ignores it. “I don’t need it. Keep on walking, we don’t have the whole night.”

A twig breaks when he steps on it. The forest fills with sound. They stop.

“Billy.”

They look at each other and the trees look at them.

“Your hand will freeze and you’ll have to cut it off.”

They’re not breathing.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

The sound echoes around them until it doesn’t.

“Please.”

Billy blinks. His curls feel gross under the hat. He looks around them, eyes narrowed at shadows.

(There might be monsters out there but Billy has lived with one for years. He is not afraid.)

He takes the glove and puts it on, curls his fingers around the bat. “Do you think we’ll find something?”

“I hope not.”

Billy blows air into his other hand. “Do you have a final wish? In case we do find a monster?”

Steve goes all silent and still, paler than the snow around them. His eyes are on Billy’s face. There is less than a foot between them. It feels like it’s sucking both of them in.

“So?”

He doesn’t get his reply.

They don’t find anything.

(Billy takes his last wish and locks it in a part of his body he can never reach.)

❆❆❆

There are seven days until Christmas. They’re in the middle of the forest, on a different path, under a different sky. Steve kisses Billy and it feels as if California's warmth drifted into Indiana's cold.

❆❆❆

Sometimes, Billy wishes for things. He wakes up yearning, the chasm in his heart getting bigger and bigger until all he’s left to do is gasping for air. The impossibility of those things is familiar to him. He knows when to stop dreaming.

But then, Steve kisses him and his lips are chapped and his face fits in Billy’s hands as if it was sculpted for him. He can taste Steve for hours after that.

❆❆❆

Max doesn't glare at him anymore. She's still careful, but it feels different.

(When Neil talks to him, she tenses up. Her eyes get fierce. Billy is not used to that look being redirected at somebody else.)

“Are you friends with Steve?” It sounds like curiosity.

Billy’s eyes are on the road. The radio is turned off. The glove is sitting in the backseat, under a paper bag.

“No.”

(They are more.)

❆❆❆

They find the place five days before Christmas. It’s closer to Hawkins than they thought, but it’s hidden from prying eyes. The trees are tall around the edges, but they open up to the sky. Their trunk is dark, dark, dark, but the naked branches are covered in thin ice. It looks like a garden full of crystal sculptures. The moon shines off every glass surface, turning everything into diamonds. The facest glisten in hues of blues and greens and deep purples. It lights up the clearing. The brook is still around the roots and ferns are frozen sculptures on its banks.

The edges are painted in inky black, but inside it’s a galaxy.

It’s otherworldly. It’s the forest from Max’s tales.

“Is this it?”

Steve whispers the words. The back of his hand is close and Billy uncurls his fingers for him. He squeezes the answer into his palm, whispers it in the space behind his left ear that has Steve squirming with giggles.

“This is _it._ ”

(This is it.)

❆❆❆

Max isn't glaring at him anymore, only on special occasions, and she doesn't comment when his music is at a deafening level.

When they go past the forest, he fiddles with the radio until Freddie Mercury starts crooning back at them. Max looks at him. Billy feels her blue eyes on the side of his face. He doesn't acknowledge it. He just drives faster.

Max drums her fingers on her thighs and when she gets out of the car, she smiles at Billy.

❆❆❆

They visit the clearing again, in the daylight, but everything looks dull in the sun. The rocks are rocks and trees are trees. Billy loses his patience five minutes in and kicks snow at Steve's boots until he gets those deer eyes on him.

"You're so cold," Steve complains, his lips pressed against Billy's cheek.

There is snow on their jackets, in their hair, because sometimes acting as a child in the middle of nowhere doesn't bring painful repercussions. The ground is hard against their back and the sky blue, blue, blue, above them and Steve throws a leg over Billy's hips and shuffles closer. "I'm cold."

Billy flicks his forehead. "We should go home."

(He ignores how he just called Steve's house, home.)

Halfway there, Billy starts swearing and when he usually does that, he loses control of the car because he can't stay still. Steve's hands are on the steering wheel in the next second, keeping them from going down into a ditch.

"What the fuck, man?"

Billy stares straight ahead, his fingers pressing into his thighs. "Max will refuse."

"What?"

"The present."

"The - ah, the clearing. How can she refuse something that's already there?"

"She won't go if I'm the one telling her about it." And now Billy turns his eyes on Steve, waiting for him to offer.

The car rumbles around them, ready to go again. It's getting late into the afternoon and they have to go pick-up the mentioned sister.

Steve bites at his nails, eyes to the side, thinking. "It's your gift, Billy," he says eventually.

"So?"

"It has to come from you."

"I don't think that's important."

Steve looks at him, his jaw set. "It kinda is considering you wanted to murder her not half a year ago."

Billy shrugs. "Now, there are monsters to do the job for me."

He gets hit in the arm for that, hard. "Don't joke about that."

Billy doesn't say sorry, but he presses the tip of his fingers to Steve's cheeks until his eyes are focused again. "I really can't do it," he whispers.

Steve kisses the back of his hand because he knows.

(Steve doesn't bring up the subject again, but Billy hears him when he calls Dustin to tell him that he found a cool place he has to show them all.)

❆❆❆

It’s almost Christmas Eve, two days away, and Steve doesn’t have a tree in his house. There are candles everywhere, painting the living room in a hazy glow. Billy’s nose is pressed in Steve’s neck. It’s warm, like in Santa Monica. He inhales and smells the mint.

It’s warm everywhere and their clothes are somewhere in a bathroom and Billy still can’t believe Steve leaves in a house that doesn't wear Christmas clothes.

“We could chop off a tree in the woods and set it up in a corner.”

Steve laughs, but it’s quiet. It jostles Billy where he’s lying on his chest. “I’m pretty sure Hop would strongly disagree with us.”

Hands find hips to squeeze. “I’m pretty sure I don’t give a crap.”

“Jane is very mean, though.”

Billy pinches his sides. He laughs, because he can because he is free to do so.

(Neil is miles away.)

“I can take her.”

“Can you take a flower monster, too?”

Billy pinches him harder, throws his legs over his thighs and sits up in his lap. He smiles down at the pretty boy underneath him, delighted by how quickly he manages to shut Steve up.

(They’re breathless and sweaty and there’s no place they would rather be.)

❆❆❆

Steve takes Max and the boys to see the clearing and Billy is close behind, watching from a safe distance. The bats are propped up against the tree, next to his leg. The gloves stay forgotten in Steve’s living room, next to his book.

The sky is overcast, but the stones are sparkling and the shadows are kinder. They don't look over their shoulders once.

(They don't spot Billy.)

The brook is frozen and the ice holds while they try to skate. They're in line, like ducklings, arms flailing. Steve is on the side, hands on his hips, laughing at them. Lucas falls on his ass, and Mike bumps his knees against his shoulders, toppling over him.

Jane is high up, on a rock, looking at them. She hops down. Her bright yellow gloves are a contrast to the blues around.

The clearing feels with their laughter, Steve's the brightest.

(They don't scream. They laugh and they laugh and they laugh.)

Billy's fingers are warm.

Max bounces off to Steve, her hair a halo around her face. Snow and ice are caught in it, and when she lifts on her tiptoes to whisper something to Steve, it looks like Steve suddenly grew a ginger mustache. She kisses his cheek and he turns red.

The clearing is reflected in their eyes. Horror is something of the past.

When they're not paying attention, Steve turns to him, face flushed and smile shy and winks at him.

(There are monsters around them and Billy lives with one. They are all going to die. But for today, he chooses to breathe and simply, be.)

Later, when they are warm under three blankets, their legs tangled, Steve presses kisses into his neck, into the side of his face. His breath tickles his ear when he whispers.

"She says thanks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahoy Harringrove lovers! i'm late and so so so new to the party and oh boy, it's been a ride. I'm a mess. It took me several months to watch season 3 (deny its existence afterward) and then spotting a harringrove fanart on twt completely by accident. I've been hooked ever since. also, dacre montgomery and joe keery. I mean, how can you not? 
> 
> anyway, I wanted to post this at Christmas, but technically it's still winter. and it's a good way to start the new year as well.  
> it's been so long since I finished a story. I've been editing one of my other long wips for half a year, maybe, plus real life was a bitch, and I am just so happy that I could finish something that isn't like 50k. and I'm so happy that it's part of stranger things bc this show has everything: monsters, the 80s, cool moms, cool kids, friendships and harringrove.
> 
> i hope you love this fic as much as i do. i'll probably be back bc this ship has so much potential (and so many metaphors to play with) and i'm simply in love with it.  
> let me know what you think! i love reading your thoughts!
> 
> also, come talk to me on [tumblr](https://remapped-soul.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/remappedsoul).


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